Why Virgin Galactic Stock Rocketed on Tuesday

Shares of space tourism pioneer -- but recent space tourism laggard -- Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) caught an updraft on Tuesday after its fiscal third-quarter 2021 earnings report revealed the space company to be losing more money than analysts had expected, but collecting more revenue than they'd hoped. Heading into Q3, Wall Street had forecast that Virgin Galactic would lose $0.28 per share in the quarter on sales of $1.6 million. Virgin whiffed on the earnings forecast, losing $0.32 per share, but it eked out a small revenue beat with sales of $2.6 million, sending its shares up 5.1% through noon EST.